MCQs- Life and Works of T S Eliot

MCQs- Life and Works of T S Eliot

1. What was T. S. Eliot’s full name?

A. Thomas Samuel Eliot

B. Thomas Stearns Eliot

C. Theodore Stearns Eliot

D. Timothy Samuel Eliot

 

2. Which city was T. S. Eliot born in?

A. Boston

B. New York

C. St. Louis

D. Chicago

 

3. Eliot’s literary age is ……… ?

A. 1888-1965

B. 1882-1960

C. 1882-1965

D. 1888-1960

 

4. T. S. Eliot was born in which country?

a. England

b. Ireland

c. United States

d. Canada

 

5. Eliot’s poem Marina (1930) draws its central metaphor from:

A. Shakespeare’s Pericles

B. Homer’s Odyssey

C. Dante’s Divine Comedy

D. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex

 

6. In which year was T. S. Eliot awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?

a. 1945

b. 1948

c. 1955

d. 1960

 

7. Which poet parodied T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday (1930) in a 1931 poem titled Cinder Thursday?

A. Ezra Pound

B. Herbert Palmer 

C. Ogden Nash

D. G.K. Chesterton

 

8. Which of the following is NOT a work by T. S. Eliot?

a. The Waste Land

b. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

c. The Hollow Men

d. The Great Gatsby

 

9. Where did T.S. Eliot study Sanskrit, which influenced works like The Waste Land?

A. University of Cambridge

B. Harvard University 

C. The Sorbonne (Paris)

D. Oxford University

 

10. Which literary movement was T. S. Eliot associated with?

a. Romanticism

b. Realism

c. Modernism

d. Postmodernism

 

11. Which T.S. Eliot poem concludes with the line: "I should be glad of another death."?

A. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

B. The Waste Land

C. Journey of the Magi 

D. Four Quartets

 

12. T.S. Eliot’s first professionally published poem was:

A.  Ash-Wednesday

B. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

C. The Waste Land

D. The Hollow Man

 

13. The nickname "Old Possum" was given to T.S. Eliot by:

A. Virginia Woolf

B. Ezra Pound 

C. W.H. Auden

D. Gertrude Stein

 

14. T.S. Eliot’s poetic meditation on the interpretation of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem appears in:

A. The Waste Land

B. Ash Wednesday

C. Journey of the Magi 

D. Four Quartets

 

15. What was the name of T. S. Eliot's second wife, married in 1957, who is also his secretary?

a. Vivienne Haigh-Wood

b. Emily Hale

c. Mary Trevelyan

d. Esmé Valerie Fletcher

 

16. Which of the following is a line from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?

a. "Do not go gentle into that good night"

b. "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo"

c. "I wandered lonely as a cloud"

d. "Because I could not stop for Death"

 

17. What was the title of T. S. Eliot's first book of poetry?

a. The Waste Land

b. Prufrock and Other Observations

c. Four Quartets

d. The Hollow Men

 

18. Which of the following works by T. S. Eliot was written during his conversion to Christianity?

a. The Waste Land

b. Four Quartets

c. Murder in the Cathedral

d. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

 

19. Who coined the term, Objective Correlative?

A. T S Eliot

B. William Wordsworth

C. P B Shelley

D. W B Yeats

 

20. Which of the following is NOT a section of T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets"?

a. Burnt Norton

b. East Coker

c. Little Gidding

d. The Hollow Men

 

21. In which year was T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", (which made him world famous), first published?

a. 1915

b. 1922

c. 1935

d. 1945

 

22. What was the name of the literary journal founded by T. S. Eliot in 1922?

a. The Criterion

b. The New Yorker

c. The Paris Review

d. The Atlantic Monthly

 

23. The epigraph of T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) is taken from:

A. Virgil’s Aeneid 

B. Dante’s Inferno 

C. Shakespeare’s Hamlet

D. John Donne’s Holy Sonnets

 

24. Who defined poetry as: “Poetry is not turning loose emotion, but an escape from emotion”

A. T S Eliot

B. William Wordsworth

C. P B Shelley

D. W B Yeats

 

25. Who declared himself as “Classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion”?

A. Mathew Arnold

B. Alexander Pope

C. John Milton

D. T S Eliot

 

26. What was the name of T. S. Eliot's play that explores the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket?

a. The Cocktail Party

b. The Family Reunion

c. Murder in the Cathedral

d. The Confidential Clerk

 

27. Which of the following is a line from T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"?

a. "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper"

b. "April is the cruellest month"

c. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"

d. "The sun beats down and I lie down to doze"

 

28. What was the name of the literary group of which T. S. Eliot was a part, along with other writers such as James Joyce and Ezra Pound?

a. The Bloomsbury Group

b. The Inklings

c. The Imagists

d. The Modernists

 

29. What was the title of T. S. Eliot's essay in which he coined the term "objective correlative"?

a. Tradition and the Individual Talent

b. The Metaphysical Poets

c. The Function of Criticism

d. Hamlet and His Problems

 

30. Which of the following is a collection of essays by T. S. Eliot?

a. Prufrock and Other Observations

b. The Sacred Wood

c. The Waste Land and Other Poems

d. Four Quartets

 

31. T.S. Eliot served as assistant editor (1917–1919) for which influential literary magazine?

A. The Dial

B. The Criterion

C. The Egoist 

D. The Little Review

 

32. In which year was T. S. Eliot appointed as a director of the publishing house Faber and Faber?

a. 1925

b. 1935

c. 1945

d. 1955

 

33. Which of the following is not a line from T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?

a. "Do I dare / Disturb the universe?"

b. "I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be"

c. " I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”

d. "In my beginning is my end"

 

34. The Family Reunion (1939) adapts which classical myth to a modern setting?

A. Oedipus Rex

B. Orestes’ vengeance

C. Medea’s infanticide

D. Antigone’s defiance

 

35. In which essay does T.S. Eliot argue that “the value of a work of art must be assessed in relation to the artist’s previous works”?

A. The Function of Criticism (1923)

B. Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

C. Hamlet and His Problems (1919)

D. The Metaphysical Poets (1921)

 

36. In which essay does T.S. Eliot argue that a work of art must always be new, stating it would otherwise "therefore not be a work of art"?

A. The Function of Criticism (1923)

B. Hamlet and His Problems (1919)

C. Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

D. The Function of Criticism (1923)

 

37. In which essay does T.S. Eliot argue that art must be understood not in isolation, but within the context of preceding artistic traditions?

A. The Metaphysical Poets (1921)

B. Hamlet and His Problems (1919)

C. Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

D. The Function of Criticism (1923)

 

38. Which of the following was a major influence on T. S. Eliot's writing?

a. Romanticism

b. Classicism

c. Realism

d. Naturalism

 

39. In T.S. Eliot’s Whispers of Immortality, the dramatist “Was much possessed by death / And saw the skull beneath the skin” and the poet who “knew the anguish of the marrow / The ague of the skeleton” are, respectively:

A. Shakespeare and Donne

B. Webster and Donne 

C. Marlowe and Marvell

D. Jonson and Herbert

 

40. Which of the following is the opening line of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"?

a. "The winter evening settles down / With smell of steaks in passageways"

b. "April is the cruellest month"

c. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"

d. "The sun beats down and I lie down to doze"

 

41. Which of the following works by T. S. Eliot is a collection of essays on literary criticism?

a. "The Waste Land"

b. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

c. "Four Quartets"

d. "The Sacred Wood"

 

42. Which of the following is a line from T. S. Eliot's "The Four Quartets"?

a. "I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be"

b. "In my beginning is my end"

c. "The winter evening settles down / With smell of steaks in passageways"

d. "We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men"

 

43. What was the title of T. S. Eliot's most famous critical essay, published in 1919?

a. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

b. "The Waste Land"

c. "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

d. "The Hollow Men"

 

44. Which of the following works by T. S. Eliot is a verse drama?

a. "The Waste Land"

b. "Four Quartets"

c. "Ash Wednesday"

d. "Murder in the Cathedral"

 

45. Which of the following works by T. S. Eliot is considered a response to the devastation of World War I?

a. "The Waste Land"

b. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

c. "Four Quartets"

d. "Murder in the Cathedral"

 

46. Which of the following is NOT a poem by T.S. Eliot?

A. The Hollow Men (1925)

B. Gerontion (1920)

C. Murder in the Cathedral (1935)

D. Ash Wednesday (1930)

 

47. T. S. Eliot is a poetic drama that takes place in a seedy London neighborhood?

a. "The Waste Land"

b. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

c. "Four Quartets"

d. "The Rock"

 

48. Where did T. S. Eliot complete his undergraduate studies?

A. Oxford University

B. Harvard University

C. Yale University

D. Cambridge University

 

49. Which of the following correctly orders T.S. Eliot’s major works from earliest to latest?

A. Prufrock and Other Observations → The Waste Land → Ash Wednesday → Four Quartets

B. The Waste Land → Prufrock and Other Observations → Four Quartets (1943) → Ash Wednesday 

C. Ash Wednesday → Four Quartets → The Waste Land → Prufrock and Other Observations

D. Four Quartets → Ash Wednesday → Prufrock and Other Observations → The Waste Land

 

50. Which religion did T. S. Eliot convert to in 1927?

A. Roman Catholicism

B. Unitarianism

C. Eastern Orthodoxy

D. Anglicanism

 

51. Which poet had a significant influence on Eliot and helped publish The Waste Land?

A. Ezra Pound

B. W. B. Yeats

C. Robert Frost

D. D. H. Lawrence

 

52. T.S. Eliot called a poet "the saddest of all poets", yet he praised for having three great qualities: “abundance, variety, and complete competence" Who is that poet?

A. Ezra Pound

B. W. B. Yeats

C. Robert Frost

D. Tennyson

 

53. T. S. Eliot’s first wife was:

A. Valerie Fletcher

B. Emily Hale

C. Vivienne Haigh-Wood

D. Edith Sitwell

 

54. What role did Eliot play at The Criterion, a literary magazine?

A. Staff writer

B. Editor

C. Literary critic

D. Publisher

 

55. Which poet had a significant influence on Eliot and helped publish The Waste Land?

A. Ezra Pound

B. W. B. Yeats

C. Robert Frost

D. D. H. Lawrence

 

56. Eliot's doctoral thesis was on the philosophy of:

A. Plato

B. Kant

C. F. H. Bradley

D. Hegel

 

57. Which of the following essays by Eliot introduces the concept of “impersonality” in poetry?

A. Hamlet and His Problems

B. The Metaphysical Poets

C. Tradition and the Individual Talent

D. The Function of Criticism

 

58. In “Hamlet and His Problems,” Eliot calls Hamlet:

A. A masterpiece of Renaissance tragedy

B. An artistic failure

C. A symbolist experiment

D. A success of ambiguity

 

59. Which concept does Eliot propose as a way to express emotion in art through a set of objects or events?

A. Stream of consciousness

B. Objective correlative

C. Negative capability

D. Pathetic fallacy

 

60. Eliot’s idea of “dissociation of sensibility” is discussed in which essay?

A. The Function of Criticism

B. The Sacred Wood

C. The Metaphysical Poets

D. What Is a Classic?

 

61. What does Eliot mean by “dissociation of sensibility”?

A. The loss of logical thinking in poetry

B. The separation of thought and feeling in later poetry

C. The use of paradox in modernist verse

D. The fusion of poetic forms and traditions

 

62. In “The Function of Criticism,” Eliot famously distinguishes between:

A. Form and content

B. Art and morality

C. Creative and critical mind

D. Emotion and intellect

 

63. Eliot’s poem “Ash-Wednesday” is often seen as a reflection of his:

A. Disillusionment with modernity

B. Conversion to Christianity

C. Interest in Eastern philosophy

D. Experience of World War I

 

64. The epigraph of The Waste Land is taken from which classical work?

A. The Aeneid

B. The Odyssey

C. The Bible

D. The Satyricon by Petronius

 

65. Which poem by Eliot ends with the famous lines: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper”?

A. Ash-Wednesday

B. The Hollow Men

C. Gerontion

D. Marina

 

66. Which children’s book of poems did Eliot write that inspired the musical Cats?

A. Cat Songs

B. Whiskers and Whimsy

C. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats

D. The Cat Chronicles

 

67. Which of the following statements about T.S. Eliot is NOT true?

A. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

B. He was born and raised in London, England. 

C. His poem The Waste Land was heavily edited by Ezra Pound.

D. He converted to Anglicanism in 1927.

 

68. T. S. Eliot died at ?

A. St. Louis

B. New York

C. London

D. Chicago

 

69. Which quartet opens with the famous rose-garden meditation?

A. The Dry Salvages

B. Burnt Norton

C. Little Gidding

D. East Coker

 

70. T. S. Eliot died in the year?

a. 1965

b. 1955

c. 1975

d. 1985

 

Answers: T S Eliot
1. B	2. C	3. A	4. C	5. A	6. B	7. B	8. D	9. B	10. C
11. C	12. B	13. B	14. C	15. D	16. B	17. B	18. C	19. A	20. D
21. B	22. A	23. B	24. A	25. C	26. C	27. A	28. D	29. D	30. B
31. C	32. A	33. D	34. B	35. B	36. C	37. C	38. B	39. B	40. B
41. B	42. B	43. C	44. D	45. A	46. C	47. D	48. B	49. A	50. D
51. A	52. D	53. C	54. B	55. A	56. C	57. C	58. B	59. B	60. C
61. B	62. C	63. B	64. D	65. B	66. C	67. B	68. C	69. B	70. A